Social Media

I’m 27 years old.

Actually, I’m not 27 years old. I’m 26 years old. I just lied on the internet! And trust me, it really is so easy that a preteen can do it.

And they do – all the time. Although Facebook’s current policy plainly prohibits anyone under the age of 13 from operating an account on the site, most reports put the number of preteen Facebook users in the millions. In fact, if a kid is on Facebook (under 18), there’s about a 2 in 5 chance that they are actually under the age of 13. Other reports, acknowledged by Facebook themselves, show that over half of parents with a 12-year-old child say that he/she has a Facebook account.

Do you think that Facebook is safe for kids under 13? If not, do you think it can be made safe with certain limitations and parental controls? Let us know in the comments.

Facebook says that they do all they can to identify and remove underage accounts – but it’s obviously one of the largest games of whack-a-mole ever. Close one down, five 11-year-olds log on in their place. Facebook removes somewhere around 20,000 underage accounts a day, and there’s still over 7.5 million under-13 accounts active on the site.

It doesn’t take the world’s most adept mathematician to see that this is a fight that’s going to be really hard to “win” with a simple ban. It’s clear that simply requiring age verification will never keep young kids off of Facebook. The site’s simply too popular. Everyone, including 10, 11, and 12-year-olds now require the social connectivity that it can provide.

Facing the evergreen problem that is trying to police all of these underage accounts, it shouldn’t shock anyone that Facebook is considering a new approach. Just over a month ago, we heard that the company was mulling over the idea of opening up the site to kids under the age of 13. We heard that Facebook’s “if you can’t beat them..” strategy would have preteen accounts closely monitored by parental controls – which would work in correlation with the safeguards that Facebook already has in place regarding minors’ privacy.

If they’re going to do it anyway, we may as well have them do it under proper supervision, right?

Early concerns

If we believe the stats, the majority of parents with 12-year-olds know that their kids are on Facebook. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are cool with it. Once the news of Facebook’s possible shift in age restrictions, people seemed to come out of every conceivable corner of the outrage circuit to voice their opinions.

And who can blame concerned parents? Facebook (and social communication in general) can be a minefield for older teens and even adults – and most people’s natural inclination is to protect young children at all costs. All a parent has to hear is one nightmarish story about child predation and subtle manipulation on Facebook, and the negatives of social networking immediately outweigh any positives. And although Facebook horror stories aren’t so commonplace as to become routine, there are still enough floating around to engender some concern.

To some parents, no amount of control or guidance would make them feel truly comfortable with opening up their preteens to the risks – either external or internal.

In one of the first major addresses of Facebook’s possible plans, nearly a dozen consumer groups sent a joint letter to Mark Zuckerberg. That letter contained some “demands” for any scenario where Facebook opens up the service to kids under 13.

Although the groups mentioned parental controls, and increased privacy for preteen members, their main point involved ads on the site – in that there shouldn’t be any when it comes to kids:

[T]he company’s business model relies, at its very core, on data collection, ad targeting, and viral marketing, and many of its practices have generated public and government privacy concerns. If Facebook opens itself up to a younger audiences, we want assurances that any space created for children under the age of 13 on the site is safe, parent-guided and controlled, and, most importantly, free of ads (including the range of practices that are routinely employed through social media marketing).

Congressional pressures and the evolution of Facebook responses

When the rumors began to fly concerning Facebook’s possible age-shift, the company was unsurprisingly unspecific about their actual thought process. Upon the initial reports, Facebook told me that they were “in continuous dialogue with stakeholders, regulators and other policymakers about how best to help parents keep their kids safe in an evolving online environment.”

After the letter from the privacy groups, Facebook started to say that they were open to suggestions:

Enforcing age restrictions on the Internet is a difficult issue, especially when many reports have shown parents want their children to access online content and services. We welcome today’s recommendations by consumer, privacy, health and child groups as we continue our dialogue with stakeholders, regulators and other policymakers about how best to help parents keep their kids safe in an evolving online environment.

Now, thanks to a newly-released letter from Facebook to two Congressmen, we know that Facebook is still thinking about it, but are a ways away from a final determination.

“At this point, we have made no final decision whether to change our current approach of prohibiting children under 13 from joining Facebook,” said the company.

That’s just a blip in a much-longer letter that the company sent Republican representative Joe Barton and Democratic representative Ed Markey. The two House members sent Facebook a letter back in early June outlining their concerns regarding the protection of kids on the site.

Facebook’s response mirrors many responses the company has had to questions raised by concerned parties. For one, they reiterate that any decision they make will be mindful of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a law that Facebook has formally addressed in a highly detailed fashion. The bulk of the response involves Facebook talking about their current features that promote safety for minors, in lieu of having yet made any actual decisions on the sub-13 crowd.

Facebook actually does do a lot, already

In addition to the everyday privacy controls that all Facebook users have access to, the company already has an admittedly impressive set of features in place that are designed to protect the network’s younger crowd.

• For instance, Facebook users aged 13-17 have different sharing settings, by default, than those users who are 18+. A minor’s sharing capabilities are limited to friends and friends of friends – no more. Also, if you’re not a friend of a friend of a minor, it’s physically impossible for you to send them a direct message.
• In a more controversial move, we recently learned that Facebook is actively monitoring the millions and million of chats and messages between their 900+ million users. Why monitor chats, you may ask? Because Facebook is always on the lookout for suspicious behaviors. And their software scans communications all across the network, looking for possibly criminal activity. That, of course, includes inappropriate conversations between minors and possible predators. Facebook’s monitoring software works in two distinct ways. First, it puts more weight into focusing on conversations between members who aren’t especially connected in any significant way – few mutual friends, new friendships, etc. Second, the message scan can identify certain words and phrases that could signal illicit communications. As a Facebook user, you can raise concerns about privacy and the legality of this sort of monitoring – and your concerns would be legitimate. But from a protecting kids standpoint, it’s hard to argue that this sort of technology is of great benefit.
• Facebook also bans sex offenders from participating in the network – outright. So do many states as well, although these laws are currently begin challenged by free speech activists as we speak.
• As a company that’s put a lot of effort into anti-bullying campaigns (having even been recognized for their work), Facebook says it’s a priority to keep users, especially minors, safe from harassment. Just recently, Facebook made a few tweaks to their reporting mechanisms to help in that effort. Now, when minors feel threatened by a particular post, the “report” procedure has been softened and made a bit more conversational and inviting. For instance “report” will be replaced with “This post is a problem.” After clicking, teens will be walked through the process with scenario-specific questions.

But is it enough?

“Children are not commodities, and their personal information should not be harvested to yield ad revenue for Facebook and its hungry shareholders,” said Rep. Markey, co-author of the letter to Facebook. “The privacy of personal information for pre-teens should not become a post-script in Facebook’s drive for profits.”

Even if Facebook opened up the network to preteens and did so by giving parents granular control over all aspects of their experience, would it be enough to assuage the concerns of many? Even after knowing that Facebook is actively trying to protect young kids from seedy situations online, does it do anything to make you feel comfortable with the thought of your 10-year-old browsing their News Feed?

The advertising issue may be just as potent of an issue as privacy and safety. Both the consumer groups and the Congressmen made ads their front and center complaint.

You could argue that children are inundated with ads all the time – television, movies, etc. Hell, walk into a toy store and you’ve basically just put your kid in the middle of a giant advertisement for various products. How can parents think that targeted ads on Facebook are any more dangerous than a targeted ad on the Sunday morning cartoons?

Or on a site like YouTube?

But it’s clear that something about Facebook ads clearly rub people the wrong way – especially when it comes to children.

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/facebooks-still-debating-whether-or-not-to-let-in-your-12-year-old-are-you-still-concerned-2012-07

I do a great deal of article writing, blogging and social media posting of content for myself and for clients. To distribute an article or post through the maze of social media networks and article publishing services can take a great deal of time. Therefore, it’s important to utilize the right social media tools that will get the job done in the best manner.

In addition to the publication of posts and blogs, to track what the results are from your efforts is important, especially if you’re reporting back to a client.

After trying out quite a few, I’ve compiled my favorite social media tools and applications, listed below, that help make my social media life simpler and more effective.

When deciding what tools would work best for your needs, the things to consider are:

* Simplicity of use
* Ability to Schedule
* Format of end distribution (what will the link/post look like when published?)
* Good API (application programming interface, which allows communication between different Web applications)
* Cost (free is great, but depending on what your or your company’s needs are, it may well be worth it to pay to upgrade services)

Hootsuite

It’s one of the best social media managing tools around to monitor your social sites, including RSS feeds, from one page. Hootsuite offers plenty of tutorials and help to get started. If you have a small business, and only a few social pages, then the free version will work well. You get up to five social profiles, two feeds and you can schedule your posts. Hootsuite integrates with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more. Connect YouTube and upload videos directly from Hootsuite, as well as respond to comments. You can post photos, links and messages directly to your streams. If you upgrade to Pro at $9.99 per month, you can have unlimited social profiles, do bulk scheduling of posts, and assign more than one user to manage your accounts. With the Pro version you also get several free analytic reports, which can get expensive if you’re paying per report with the free version.

Raven

Raven tools offers all that Hootsuite does. You can stream Facebook, Twitter and YouTube from one page, but the streams are mixed together, making it difficult to sort, read and respond. You can post directly to one or all streams, and schedule them. One downside about the posting from Raven is you cannot post original or large-sized photos, only thumbnails from links.

The best part about Raven is its research and analytical tools. Link your blog, and use its manager to write custom posts focusing on specific keywords that you choose. The manager will analyze your content keywords for density, frequency and relevance, as well as the readability for average age and grade level. In addition, with it SEO tools, utilizing data from SEMRush, SEOmoz and Majestic SEO, you can do deep research on detailed keywords, competitors, links and social intelligence from any domain.

Another plus to Raven is that it provides an awesome custom reporting platform, with which you can create custom, white labeled reports pulling statistics from Facebook Insights, Twitter, Google Analytics, saved keyword searches, SERPs, and a great deal more.

With the Pro plan at $99, you can have up to four users, unlimited Facebook and Twitter accounts, 20 social monitor searches, 1,000 keyword rankings, and a whole lot of link management. If creating reports and SEO research is important, Raven is the best bet. You can try it out free for 90 days. There is no free version.

ifttt

If This Then That (hence its acronym, ifttt) is one of the handiest free social managing tools that enables you to link multiple social media sources and blast your content across the Web all from one post. The concept is based on “recipes” that users create to link their accounts. If you post to your blog, then a post goes out to your Facebook Fan page. You can then set up concurrent recipes–Facebook to Twitter, Facebook to Blogger etc. Mix and match your recipes from nearly 50 social channels to your needs. And it’s completely free! ifttt

Ezine Articles WordPress Plug-In

If you’re utilizing Ezine already, this plugin will make your blog publishing life much easier. After you install, simply write your blog, and, following Ezine’s publishing rules, press submit and the article automatically goes to your Ezine account for review and approval.

Source: http://www.sitepronews.com/2012/07/08/apps-to-make-your-social-media-efforts-easier/

The search industry has witnessed multiple changes over the past couple of years. Among the most notable changes are social, mobile, and local being integrated into search results. While each of these play a big role in the search evolution that has occurred, I think it’s fair to say that social tops the list.

How has social media influenced your search experience? Do you prefer its integration, or would you rather have the “old search” model back? Let us know.

The influx of Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and now players such as Pinterest has all dramatically impacted how users search. With Google as the dominant search engine, it has obviously pushed its social endeavors aggressively to become the leader in both sectors. After Larry Page became Google’s CEO, reports circulated that he was tying all employees’ bonuses to the success of Google’s social strategy.

What’s more, in a recent interview with Charlie Rose, when asked if he was concerned about Facebook’s competition in search, Page answered with: “It’s something that we take seriously just like we do social media.”

According to Grant Simmons, the Director of SEO and Social Product at The Search Agency, Google has been worried for some time about competition, especially in social. Although the latest statistics show that Google+ has over 100 million users, it’s clear that it is not gaining the same traction that Facebook did.

In addition, Google has made some drastic moves including Search Plus Your World and the recent launch of its Knowledge Graph, both of which are designed to improve users’ search experience by making it simpler, personal, and more social. Interestingly though, as Simmons pointed out to us, these recent announcements from Google are similar to products from other companies, AKA competitors.

He told us that Google has rolled out lots of “me too” announcements and that it is “trying to differentiate itself by copying.”

“The Knowledge Graph is certainly to address some of that,” he went on to say, “but I think also, it’s more like to them looking forward to how they can get Google to be more sticky and also more competitive.”

The push, however, of Google’s social products into search has not exactly set well with users or the search industry as a whole. Although the tone could change and users might begin to find Google’s products useful, it could also turn users away.

“With the alternative search engines whether it’s social search or whether it’s media search or whether it’s just mobile search, I think that Google is a little bit concerned,” explained Simmons,” and tying in their 400-500 million users into search results makes sense, it’s just whether users will get a little bit overcome by Google products always being pushed; or, whether it’s gonna be something they adopt because it’s useful to them.”

When talking about social and the possibilities of a search engine though, one can’t rule out Facebook. At this point, Bing powers the search function on Facebook, but given the social giant’s wide range of data, it’s likely got something up its own sleeve in the search department.

“I think Facebook has to get into some type of search leveraging the data they have,” said Simmons. “They’re already working on it, I’m sure.”

But, as Jessica Lee of The Search Agency pointed out on GigaOM, Facebook can’t exactly compete with Google’s more than 8.6 billion indexed pages. Simmons believes Facebook will use its “Like” system, Open Graph, user profiles, and other data it has acquired toward its search curation product.

“What they do have is they have a core or a connection between lots of pages that have likes on them,” he said. “They have, within Facebook, an understanding of what you do like from a page standpoint, what your connections are, what you talk about within Faceboook, and I think by leveraging that data, they can get a pretty good understanding of what you’re looking for, what you like, [and] what you might connect with on a more relevant basis.”

He sees Facebook’s partnership with Bing continuing at least in the short-term, since both parties benefit. In addition, it addresses Google’s integration with Google+ into its search results.

Incidentally, Danny Sullivan in a piece on Search Engine Land in April expressed his doubt for Facebook starting a search engine:

I’ve been asked a lot recently about whether I believe Facebook will create its own search engine, because the rumors that never die have started again. I don’t, not a web-wide one.

Among other reasons, I think Facebook won’t because it understands that doing social right, when you’re at the scale Facebook handles, is ensuring that people discover what’s interesting to them rather than having to search for it.

Social = discovery, a kissing cousin of search, but not the same. And social is what Facebook is focused on. That’s plenty to chew on. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said as much repeatedly, such as to Charlie Rose last year, about wanting to do “one thing incredibly well.” That means continuing to perfect social.

Twitter has also been mentioned in the talks of social search engines, but according to Simmons, it already has “robust search,” but it is challenged by a struggling business model.

Going forward, it’s essentially inevitable that social search will play an even greater role in the game of search. The winner, however, is yet to be determined.

Simmons did tell us that SEOs needed to begin thinking about social search and where their audiences are. Most importantly, he believes that brands need to understand that there are different venues and that their audiences will likely need to be approached in different ways.

“We talk about The Search Agency Search Anywhere Optimization or Search Everywhere Optimization as the new SEO, and it really is about where people are searching and where they’re searching and niche-type stuff,” he said.

“The single search venue as the solution to social search probably won’t happen,” he continued. “It’s gonna be more about these connections, affiliations, [and] associations that make sense to me as an individual as opposed to just a personalized search engine like Google.”

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/who-will-win-the-social-search-engine-war-facebook-google-or-someone-else-2012-07